February 2013 Archives

It was a little over two years ago that I came across Bluefin Labs and Deb, its charismatic CEO. It was before Bluefin had a product (it was a technology only) and definitely well before they had any sort of sales or marketing team. Deb and I discussed how GRPs needed to evolve as a measurement format for broadcast television and it was at that time that I coined the phrase "GRPE" in a Harvard Business Review piece.

Our conversations led us, at PepsiCo Beverages, to first use Bluefin Labs to power the Pepsi Music Index at SXSW 2011 and then to become one of the first brand clients for their Social TV platform. So it is no surprise that I'm excited to hear that they are being acquired by Twitter. This acquisition is important and it means a few things in my opinion for Twitter and the social media ecosystem:

1. Twitter believes in Social TV's future. They're really placing big bets on Social TV recognizing that the discovery and engagement feedback loop with television has been responsible for considerable growth on the Twitter platform and will probably continue to drive growth in the future. They also know that this phenomena translates into advertiser interest which requires tighter metrics. That's where Bluefin labs enters the picture. Social TV has been a smart play by Twitter and continues to be one.

2. Twitter wants to build its own measurement ecosystem. Everyday of my life I get to talk to a lot of different people in the media and marketing industry. Some of them have strong opinions of Nielsen and don't particularly appreciate its dominance on everything measurement related. While that dominance simplifies my life on the brand side, I can understand why it may make certain media companies, publishers, brands, platforms and technology companies nervous. By acquiring a social analytics firm, Twitter is saying that it wants to control and own its own measurement destiny. It also sees opportunities to monetize its data more directly and doesn't want to leave that to Nielsen or anyone else. Smart again.

3. Twitter recognizes that marketers really want better metrics. If there is any single thing holding advertisers back from spending more in digital and more in emergent social media platforms, it is the rather raw measurements of this space. There are too many measures, not enough standardization, limited co-relation to broadcast and other forms of media and in some cases weak ties to ROI. This issue is exacerbated among the social media platforms. Twitter and Bluefin both recognized this and this acquisition signals that Twitter believes that it can make measurement and broadcast measurement co-relation a differentiator. The other social platforms can learn from this.

4. Twitter is comfortable in its own skin not competing with broadcast. If there's any a time to say that Digital has truly come of age, it is now. The fact that Bluefin labs and by extension of that now Twitter (with its 100 million users) believe that the platform can be used to gauge the effectiveness of television advertising shows how much has changed. Furthermore, Bluefin believes (as do its competitors like Networked Insights and Trendrr), that its tools can be used to make much smarter, cost effective and impactful television media buys. Influencing those spends is something what Twitter wants to do. It elevates Twitter from being just a social media platform to something more insight led.

5. Twitter's competitors should be getting more and more nervous. We all know that Facebook is a massive success and its aggressive move into mobile will play dividends. But what people don't talk about it is that it's never been very successful in the Social TV ecosystem (It's telling that Twitter was mentioned in 26 of the 52 national Super Bowl 2013 commercials while Facebook was in only 4). One can argue that Facebook can surive and continue to grow immensely without playing in the Social TV space or at least at the same scale as Twitter. But what does this mean for Pinterest, Tumblr, Path and the other social platforms? Each are incredible platforms but they need something to juice their next wave of hockey stick growth. It's unlikely that it'll be television and the Social TV ecosystem now with Twitter obviously doubling down in this space.